PALMOILMAGAZINE, JAKARTA – For almost 13 years, Indonesia Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) has been promoted to be applied by oil palm cultivation business actors, including independent smallholders. However, the level of achievement of ISPO certification by smallholders is still very low, there are only 81 certificates with a total area of 60,235.58 hectares, out of a land area controlled by smallholders reaching 6.94 million hectares.
The Indonesian government has established policies related to sustainable plantation development since 2011. The policy, among others, is regulated in the Regulation of the Minister of Agriculture (MOA) Number 19 of 2011 concerning Guidelines for Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil Plantations. In 2015, this guideline changed its name to MOA Number 11 of 2015 concerning the Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil Certification System (ISPO).
This commitment was further strengthened with the issuance of Presidential Regulation (Perpres) Number 44 of 2020 concerning the Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil Plantation Certification System, as well as MOA Number 38 of 2020 concerning the Implementation of ISPO.
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In addition to encouraging the implementation of a sustainable palm oil cultivation system, ISPO certification is also an integral part of efforts to protect and empower smallholders. Therefore, the Government or Regional Government has the obligation and responsibility to ensure access to oil palm smallholders in obtaining ISPO certification through assistance, counseling, education, and training, as well as facilitating access to finance, marketing results, and information.
Moreover, the diverse typology of oil palm smallholders is a variable that is negated in the regulations and ISPO certification institutions, so it tends to be difficult to access and the cause of the slow achievement of the ISPO target.
Whereas this diversity requires protection and empowerment by their respective characteristics. Therefore, it is important to know the factual typology of oil palm smallholders in Indonesia which has several characteristics such as traditional oil palm smallholders from the tradition of rubber gardening/farming switching to oil palm plantations; smallholders with less than 25 ha but have access to factories by employing small or large scale laborers and even more than 25 ha but are not classified as companies, some do not live in the countryside / around the plantation; smallholders who do not have a plantation development plan aka built sporadically depending on the capital they have. They are not in groups, have low human resources, do not monitor planting years, do not have land area data, and do not have legality.
Therefore, SPKS considers that there is diversity at the level of oil palm smallholders and therefore the ISPO certification system needs to adapt to the diversity of oil palm smallholders. Therefore, regulations or certification standards must be changed according to the level of disparity at the oil palm smallholder level.
Certification for all
13 years of ISPO implementation in Indonesia has only reached 0.3% of certification for oil palm smallholders, whereas in 2025, it should be almost 100% because there is a government target that by that year the system will be mandatory. Therefore, there needs to be a massive and innovative movement by implementing a large-scale certification system with a regional approach. According to SPKS, only this approach will accelerate the certification system in Indonesia, especially for small-scale smallholders.
The current certification system has not been able to answer the challenges at the oil palm smallholder level, especially for smallholders who are not yet in groups, which amounts to a very large number of around 70% of the total 6.9 million ha of smallholder plantation area. SPKS believes that to solve this, institutions at the regional level, such as local governments, must be involved. Local governments that have access to manage revenue sharing funds as well as BPDP-KS funds, have access to the central government and have a complete bureaucratic and political infrastructure are considered suitable for driving ISPO certification at the smallholder level. The territorial/jurisdictional approach will result in a larger number of smallholders.
The current certification implementation is still very complicated for smallholders spread across 16,500 villages in Indonesia. For example, group building in each village, data collection, training, mentoring, farm legality and institutionalization and socialization. This is a very long and complicated process. Regulations must simplify this, accommodate a large-scale certification approach with a regional approach so that smallholders can easily get ISPO certification.
As a smallholder organization, it strives to continue organizing independent smallholder groups and conducting training on best and sustainable cultivation practices. Furthermore, SPKS also encourages multi-stakeholder collaboration, including the Government, NGOs, plantation companies, smallholders and satisfied communities to work together to implement ISPO sustainable principles and criteria through a jurisdictional approach.
Chairman of the Union of Oil Palm Smallholders (SPKS), Sabarudin, expressed the importance of expanding access to ISPO (Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil) funding for oil palm smallholders. According to him, such access should not be limited to smallholders, but should also be given to organizations such as SPKS that have polygons or smallholder group partnerships. Sabarudin highlighted this in a Public Discussion and Press Conference held by SPKS on Wednesday (3/4/2024) in Jakarta.
Furthermore, Sabarudin said that SPKS has as many as 20 thousand oil palm smallholder members spread across 15 districts. However, unfortunately, these smallholders are experiencing obstacles when they want to carry out ISPO certification because they are constrained by financing problems. They do not have sufficient funds to carry out the ISPO certification process.
“Unfortunately, the government does not pay attention to this funding problem, especially when smallholders are scattered in various locations as happened in Sanggau District, where there are 1000 smallholders who want to apply ISPO,” Sabarudin said.
Smallholders in Sanggau already have mapping, Cultivation Registration Certificate (STDB), and all other requirements needed for certification. Sabarudin mentioned that there are already 12 cooperatives ready to implement ISPO and they have fulfilled all administrative requirements, but are constrained by funding.
As such, expanding access to ISPO funding is important to ensure that oil palm smallholders, including those belonging to organizations such as SPKS, can easily access the certification process without being constrained by financial issues. This will not only help improve the sustainability of the palm oil industry, but also support Indonesia’s efforts in promoting sustainable palm oil products globally.
Meanwhile, Prayudi Syamsuri, Director of Processing and Marketing of Plantation Products (PPHBun), said that the achievement of Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) certification is still lagging behind, because it only covers 5.6 million hectares, or the current ISPO achievement has only reached around 37.08 percent. Therefore, in order to overcome these obstacles, the main focus is on institutional improvement in this industry.
Prayudi said that his party emphasized its commitment to strengthening institutions as an effort to face challenges in achieving higher ISPO targets. In this context, he asked the Palm Oil Fund Management Agency (BPDPKS) to provide support in financing the Cultivation Registration Certificate (STDB). Furthermore, smallholder groups that have carried out the ISPO process are asked to register in accordance with the Facilities and Infrastructure (Sarparas) program.
In an effort to optimize the use of funds, Prayudi, emphasized the importance of proposing targets appropriately and efficiently. This process will receive direct supervision from relevant parties to ensure its smoothness and effectiveness.
Prayudi further said that the revision in the implementation of ISPO is an important thing to discuss, where the discussion includes the downstream aspects of palm oil and adjusting the status of ISPO to become mandatory or voluntary.
“The process of revising regulations by the Ministry of Agriculture is expected to accelerate the completion, so that ISPO can be implemented more widely and effectively. The assessment model will continue to be refined to reduce costs and speed up the ISPO certification process, so that the burden on BPDPKS can be reduced and transferred to other cooperatives,” Prayudi said.
Sunari, Director of Fund Raising at the Palm Oil Plantation Fund Management Agency (BPDPKS), emphasized the importance of the Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) Certificate as the main identity in making Indonesia’s palm oil industry a sustainable player. Sunari emphasized that it was no longer relevant to compare ISPO with RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) or vice versa. “Let’s have an ISPO identity and become the Indonesian version of sustainable palm oil, we only follow the policies that have been set,” he said. (P3)
